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You know the commercial. One person is walking down the street eating a chocolate bar. Another approaches from the opposite direction eating peatnut butter. They collide. “Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter…”

I was just a child when that commercial came out. My understanding is that before these Reeses Peanut Butter Cups commercials came along, the idea of mixing peanut butter and chocolate together seemed odd, if not kind of gross, to most people. It is true that many chocolate bars had nuts in them at the time, and you could certainly buy chocolate covered peanuts. But somehow it took these commercials to change the cultural perception of the mix.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), this kind of cultural change isn’t that easy to accomplish. It turns out that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were invented in 1928, and it took until the 1970s and this commercial for them to gain widespread acceptance.

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While Mormon culture has had some similar things come along (think CTR rings, for example), the way these changes seem to happen isn’t as straightforward or under the control of promoters. We don’t have mass media to speak of, so there isn’t a way to get a new cultural idea out for even most English-speaking members in the U.S.

Normally, from what I’ve observed, cultures seem to change slowly, drifting along as pushed by the eddies of a multitude of small influences. Occasionally, larger tides come along to influence the direction of culture. These larger influences come from things like technology, other cultures, and, very occasionally, promotion.

The Mormon subculture in the U.S. also drifts along this way, with the influence of the broader U.S. culture perhaps the most influential force. But as for large influences, I think we basically have one: General Conference. A large part of new cultural ideas accepted by Mormons originated in General Conference. We’ve been told “Lengthen your Stride,” and have been taught the six b’s, along with a host of other ideas that became popular in Mormon culture, all from what was said in General Conference.

For those of us who would like to see some improvements in Mormon culture, the lack of another venue, one more suited to commercial and non-doctrinal messages is a significant stumbling bock. Change seems almost impossible without such a venue or venues.

I suppose I could always hope for some new General Authority to suggest in Conference that just because members should avoid sex, violence, and drugs in their entertainment doesn’t mean they must put up with insipid story lines and an unrealistic portrayal of evil. But I don’t think I’ll keep my hope in such an unlikely occurance up too much.

Instead, what should we do? What steps can we take to improve Mormon culture?

But in thinking about David’s post, I can’t help but remember that promotion can also be used in the wrong way. In the Mormon context, publishers and authors face significant cultural and ethical dilemmas in promoting their work.

Frequently Church members assume that if cultural works have been produced to further the gospel, they should be given away for free, or at low cost. While there is certainly a role for giving works away for free, there are also significant disadvantages to giving works away for free. Probably the major disadvantage is the lack of promotion — unless someone is promoting a work, the number of copies distributed is very limited; and when a work is given away for free, there are rarely any funds available for or effort put into promotion.

Given the need for some kind of promotion, it is no surprising the efforts that publishers and some authors go to in promoting their work. Any promotion at all sometimes feels like its ethically wrong. And since the Church prohibits using its facilities and member lists for commercial purposes, most promotion aimed at LDS Church members seems somehow wrong. While not quite priestcraft, is it wrong to use the fact of Church membership to earn money?

While that dilemma is in the back of the minds of publishers and authors, they also struggle with the dilemmas associated with the text itself, especially, should the text be crafted for a particular target audience? If an author does so, has he remained true to his muse? What if instead the elements targeted to an audience aren’t crucial to the message or ideas in the work? If I want to target college-age LDS women at BYU, should I work in a BYU angle, even if the book is set in Europe?

Many dilemmas that we face in life come down to simple conventions in our community — that is, what our friends and neighbors, helpers and customers, expect. But successful promotion often relies on the unexpected. One graphic design book I read years ago said that the key to great design is knowing all the rules of good design, and breaking at least one. Promotion is also like that — these days if you don’t break one of the rules, no one pays attention. But there is an art to knowing which rule to break, since many of these rules will either yield ethical dilemmas or turn off the audience.

Over the years, I’ve seen a number of promotional efforts used by LDS publishers and authors, some of them seemed questionable. Here are some examples:

* Prospecting at church — talking to anyone who will listen about your work, so that you can judge their interest and call those interested later to make a sale.

* Simply letting others know about your latest work — in the hope that they will look for it later.

* Handing out business cards or flyers, or posting them on bulletin boards.

* Reading passages from your work in classes, at firesides or homemaking meetings.

* Giving presentations on the same subject (but not necessarily mentioning the book) in classes, at firesides or homemaking meetings.

* Collecting email or physical addresses from Church directories because “I know them personally, I’m just looking up the address of a friend.”

* Years ago, I saw one Internet-based promotion in which  Church members were asked to give the advertiser the name and address of their Bishop.

I’m sure you that read this post will know of other promoting techniques, both ethical and not. I’d be very interested to hear them. What techniques have you used or heard of?